POPS

My Dad died on December 19, 1988. That night I tried to book a flight to return to the US on both PANAM and TWA, but was wait-listed on both flights. Subsequently, I took an Air India flight the following morning. The PANAM flight was the Lockerbie flight, blown out of the air by Libyan agents.

The shock of a death, even one which was the end of a long and painful process of deterioration, took about six years to bubble up to the surface, and erupted in a very painful period of introspection and doubt when I was stricken with glandular fever.

I wrote this poem shortly thereafter.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL IDEA

The most beautiful idea on the face of the earth is the idea the child has that his father knows everything. Jack Kerouac The Town and the City

Memories beat inside a hollow chest

As I awaken to a sledgehammer of sorrow

I hear you say:

The best of thoughts are tears

When words will soothe tomorrow

I feel the circle close

As your lifewill's slowly broken

You're gone

And now it's me who knows

The truth of what you've spoken

Father, further will I try to band

That ring each has of winning

But sometimes

An end must be at hand

To realise a beginning.

-----------------------

To my Dad.

With love.

November 1994